w, and will
take no offence. The fact is, I have noticed as we came along half
your population dresses in all the colours of the rainbow--'fancy
suitings' our tailors could call it at home--and this half of the
census are undoubtedly men and women. The rub is that the other half,
to which you belong, all dress alike in YELLOW, and I will be fired
from the biggest gun on the Carolina's main deck if I can tell what sex
you belong to! I took you for a boy in the beginning, and the way you
closed with the idea of having a drink with me seemed to show I was
dead on the right course. Then a little later on I heard you and a
friend abusing our sex from an outside point of view in a way which was
very disconcerting. This, and some other things, have set me all abroad
again, and as fate seems determined to make us chums for this
voyage--why--well, frankly, I should be glad to know if you be boy or
girl? If you are as I am, no more nor less then--for I like
you--there's my hand in comradeship. If you are otherwise, as those
sleek outlines seem to promise--why, here's my hand again! But man or
woman you must be--come, which is it?"

If I had been perplexed before, to watch that boy now was more curious
than ever. He drew back from me with a show of wounded dignity, then
bit his lips, and sighed, and stared, and frowned. "Come," I said
laughingly, "speak! it engenders ambiguity to be so ambiguous of
gender! 'Tis no great matter, yes or no, a plain answer will set us
fairly in our friendship; if it is comrade, then comrade let it be; if
maid, why, I shall not quarrel with that, though it cost me a likely
messmate."

"You mock me."

"Not I, I never mocked any one."

"And does my robe tell you nothing?"

"Nothing so much; a yellow tunic and becoming enough, but nothing about
it to hang a deduction on. Come! Are you a girl, after all?"

"I do not count myself a girl."

"Why, then, you are the most blooming boy that ever eyes were set upon;
and though 'tis with some tinge of regret, yet cheerfully I welcome you
into the ranks of manhood."

"I hate your manhood, send it after the maidhood; it fits me just as
badly."

"But An, be reasonable; man or maid you must be."

"Must be; why?"

"Why?" Was ever such a question put to a sane mortal before? I stared
at that ambiguous thing before me, and then, a little wroth to be
played with, growled out something about Martians being all drunk or
mad.

"'Tis you yoursel